AT WORK WITH: Evelyn Lauder; From Pink Lipstick To Pink Ribbons

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THERE aren't too many people around who really care about Evelyn Lauder's favorite lipstick color. Which is just as well. The woman who has been called the Crown Princess of the Estee Lauder Companies is too savvy, and far too guarded, to name one. But there's no doubt that high on the list is a comparatively new shade called Pink Ribbon. It's more than a color to her; it's another element in her crusade to raise awareness of, and to fight, breast cancer.

Mrs. Lauder, the senior corporate vice president of the privately held $2 billion-plus company, is an immaculately turned-out, awesomely organized woman. She has become increasingly visible as her mother-in-law, Estee Lauder (whose exact age is buried somewhere but who is thought to be in her late 80's), has curtailed many public activities.

Does she get a salary? She laughed. "Of course," she said this week, sounding somewhat incredulous. "If I didn't, you wouldn't see me there."

How much? "It's very nice, but I don't even think I know what it is, there are so many deductions," she said. It was a typical Evelyn Lauder reply, gracefully deflecting a question she had no intention of answering.

There's no salary attached to her fund-raising. She has become a major raiser of funds and voice in the campaign against breast cancer. She was responsible for raising a good part of the $13.6 million needed for the construction of the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The breast center, which specializes in treatment and diagnostic services, opened in October 1992. In addition, $5 million that she helped to raise went to an endowment for clinical research there.

That might have been mission accomplished for most. It was just the end of Phase 1 for Mrs. Lauder. In 1993, she set up the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, which raises money for research at eight medical institutions around the country. Her husband, Leonard Lauder, the company's chief executive, underwrote the cost of registering the foundation in every state. By the end of 1994, almost $900,000 had been raised -- $120,000 from the sale of Pink Ribbon lipstick and blusher and $190,000 from the sale of Berry Kiss pink lipstick, a shade in the company's Clinique line.

"I feel it's important to make a mark somewhere," she said of her activities, which include her work with the Central Park Conservancy and the Board of Overseers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering. "I've always been a person who is driven."

The foundation is the reason Mrs. Lauder, who is 57 and considers herself a private person, has spent much of the last few months zigzagging the country, eating mounds of chicken and pounds of broccoli, explaining the pink enamel ribbon on her lapel, spreading the gospel of breast-cancer awareness to the throngs who meet her in book and department stores.

She has made 26 such appearances in 18 cities since last fall to promote "The Seasons Observed," a book of her landscape photographs (Harry N. Abrams, $24.95). The appearances, to extend to Europe in the spring, serve a double purpose: satisfying a certain pride of creation and racking up royalties. The book's royalties are marked for the foundation, as are hefty percentages in profits that some stores are contributing. Mrs. Lauder said she expects the amount raised to soon add up to about $75,000.

For a woman who is active in health and cosmetic symposiums and civic and social events, "private" is a relative word. To her, it means no publicity on the couple's homes in Manhattan and Aspen, Colo., or their cabin in upstate New York, and nothing other than statistics about family. There are two sons, William, 34, the vice president of Origins, an Estee Lauder company, and Gary, 32, the chairman of ICTV, a high-tech television company in Los Gatos, Calif.; two daughters-in-law, and two grandchildren.

She is equally reluctant to discuss her own breast cancer, discovered in 1989. "My own situation doesn't really matter." she said in a voice that brooked no further probing. "The fact that I'm an activist is what's important."

Forget the voice; let's try again. "It's not what's important," she said with finality. The soft smile is deceptive (there's undeflectable determination behind it). And beneath her understated designer clothes is a will of steel.

Still, her own experience with cancer probably played a part in her vision of the breast center. She prefers to attribute her vision to her business background.

"I'm a marketer," she said. "I know what women want, and I understood the lacks in the system. Why shouldn't there be genetic, nutritional and psychological counseling; an education center; physical therapy; a pharmacy; a library; a program for makeup and hair advice, and a boutique with turbans with bangs, soft toothbrushes and hairbrushes, bras, clothes, one-stop shopping?"

There are more than 600 photographs in the center, at 205 East 64th Street. About half are by Mrs. Lauder -- landscapes uncluttered by figures. Photography was not a serious undertaking of hers until an exhibition of her work was held in 1992 and a book was suggested.

But what helped transform her from dilettante to professional photographer was the need for something to enliven the walls of the center. "We didn't want to spend money on decor," she said, her red suit a slash of color against the creamy beige background inside the center.

Neutral backgrounds are almost an Evelyn Lauder signature. The living room of the Manhattan duplex apartment that she won't discuss -- an interview was conducted there, on the condition nothing be written about it -- is beige. Could that color be mentioned? Yes, she agreed, but nothing more. Her office, too, high up in the General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue at 59th Street, is a symphony of noncolor, deliberately bland.

"Color is a big part of what I do," she said. "It's like music. There are only so many notes in the scale, but there are endless permutations; there's no limit to the number. Color on the walls or furniture can reflect back and distort the reality of the true colors of lipsticks and eye shadow."

Mrs. Lauder, who was born in Vienna and grew up in New York, met her husband on a blind date while she was a student at Hunter College, working between semesters at a Barnes & Noble store. They were married in 1959 and have often celebrated anniversaries with contributions to their communities. Once, they mobilized their Manhattan neighbors, raising funds and contributing a substantial share for the planting and care of trees on their street.

All of which may or may not have been possible had Mrs. Lauder achieved her early ambition to snag a lawyer. The lawyer didn't materialize; Leonard Lauder did, but the romance almost ended before it began.

"My father loved him, and I was at the stage where anything my father approved of, I didn't -- so that killed it for a while," she said. Mr. Lauder kept calling, and after they married, she left her job as an public schoolteacher. Shortly after, she joined her husband in the fledgling cosmetics company, founded by his mother in 1946.

There were six Lauder products at the time: a red lipstick, creams, lotions and Youth Dew fragrance in a bath oil.

Those were the days when she answered the telephone in different voices, hoping to convince callers that the company was bigger than it was.

"I'd say, 'Hello, Estee Lauder; hold on for a minute please,' " she recalled. "Then, in another voice, I'd say, 'Order department, one minute,' and I'd reach in the drawer for an order form." In addition, she began instructing women who were sent to train personnel in stores around the country. Later, she came up with several ideas for products now considered staples, like cheek color in the form of colored pressed powder and lip gloss in a lipstick tube rather than in a pot.

The five Lauder companies (Estee Lauder, Clinique, Origins, Prescriptives, Aramis) now produce some 2,000 individual shades and items, and Mrs. Lauder is a catalyst, sort of. She said she interferes and questions "when necessary"; she eagle-eyes details, from package design to the shortage of ice at a press party; she suggests, and she hops planes. She spends about a third of her time traveling, often with her husband but frequently alone.

"Are you that Lauder?" ask the flight attendants, the salesclerks, the hotel concierges. When your name is Lauder, you're rarely really alone.

A version of this article appears in print on February 2, 1995, on Page C00001 of the National edition with the headline: AT WORK WITH: Evelyn Lauder; From Pink Lipstick To Pink Ribbons. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe